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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 9d

Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand:

A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social

conceptual schema for different habituation models

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Sep 5

Amazing talk from @sjblakemore.bsky.social at #flux2025 - childhood and the age of legal responsibility; voting age; graduated driving licenses.

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Sep 4

Excited for our new OPM-MEG system!

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Sep 4

Wearable TCD brain scanner a 'gamechanger' for research
www.rte.ie/news/ireland...
@trinityneuro.bsky.social

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Mark H Johnson @markhjoh.bsky.social · Aug 1

Finally got around to this interesting exchange. Much to like! However, in my view neonate cortex is building a foundation model while sub-cortical sensorimotor routes support newborn behaviours and, importantly, bias the inputs to the foundation model (e.g. orienting toward faces).

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 19

This is a great opportunity for rising stars and established research leaders particularly when combined with an ERC frontier research grant (€4-4.5 million including relocation-to-Europe supplement).

Deadline for expression of interest is Aug 28

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 19

The Trinity College institute of Neuroscience is located on Trinity's main campus in the heart of the city. Founded in 1592, Trinity is a research intensive university with strength across disciplines, currently ranked 75 in the world, valuing diversity, inclusion and kindness.

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 19

Ireland launches global talent fund! www.researchireland.ie/funding/glob...
If you're a neuroscience professor (assistant/associate/full) and would consider relocating to the vibrant and booming city of Dublin, please get in touch!

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Tim Bayne @timbayne.bsky.social · Jul 18

Very pleased that my commentary on Jonathan Birch's fantastic "The Edge of Sentience" has finally appeared. @birchlse.bsky.social and I agree on many things, but there was enough distance between our views to make this a productive exchange.

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · Jul 16

Wonderful to read Tim Bayne's review of The Edge of Sentience in Mind & Language. Subscribers to the journal can read the full review and my responses. doi.org/10.1111/mila...

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 5

Thank you very much for the discussion, Martin, @marielgoddu.bsky.social and Ruthe! Look forward to discussing more. Will any of you make it to CCN in Amsterdam?

Martin Zettersten @mzettersten.bsky.social · Jul 5

Enjoyed this interesting discussion with Rhodri Cusack & co-author team about their foundation model perspective on infant development! Both the letter by @marielgoddu.bsky.social, Ruthe, and I (www.cell.com/trends/cogni... and a thoughtful response from the original authors are now officially out.

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 2

Interesting! Random exploration is consistent - the important thing is that the infant doesn't start to optimize decisions that corrupt learning by forcing early cheap solutions building on sub-optimal representations.

Eye movements are exploration too as @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social reminds me

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 2

I love the idea of explore-to-exploit transition in childhood! But, in the helpless period (first 6-8 months?) there's no reaching, crawling or walking, and humans get much less exploration done than a chicken or a lamb. Pre-exploration infantile chillaxing- that's what we're trying to explain.

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 2

I'm glad you like the fundamental point. The novel contribution is to suggest that the requirement for lots of self-supervised learning upfront could drive a long helpless period in human infants. Otherwise, helplessness is dangerous and such a lot of work for the caregivers!

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jul 2

Thanks to fellow defenders @clionaod.bsky.social, Marc'Aurelio Ranzato, and @charvetcj.bsky.social

Defending the foundation model view of infant development www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Defending the foundation model view of infant development

www.sciencedirect.com

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Jun 25

Not just one, but two fantastic chances to discuss how infant development can inform machine learning and vice-versa at CCN 2025 in Amsterdam!!! Satellite workshop sites.google.com/view/child2m...
and Generative Adversarial Collaboration sites.google.com/ccneuro.org/...

CCN 2025 Satellite Event

Background The human visual system is full of optimisations—mechanisms designed to extract the most useful information from a constant stream of incoming data. The field of neuro-AI has made significa...

sites.google.com

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · May 24

Excited to see our response published www.cell.com/trends/cogni... to Zettersten at al's thoughtful commentary www.cell.com/trends/cogni... on our TiCS perspective "Helpless infants are learning a foundation model" www.cell.com/trends/cogni... @trinityneuro.bsky.social @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

Defending the foundation model view of infant development

In response to the opinion article by Cusack et al. [1], Zettersten et al. [2] challenge the proposal that human infants undergo a stage-like development from sensory to goal-directed actions. Zetters...

www.cell.com

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · May 22

Great to see this award to Peter Gorman, from Trinity-Columbia's joint BA programme. www.tcd.ie/news_events/... @trinityneuro.bsky.social

Trinity-Columbia Dual BA graduate delivers valedictorian speech

Peter Gorman, a graduate of the Dual BA Program between Trinity and Columbia University, recently delivered the Columbia GS Class of 2025 valedictorian speech.

www.tcd.ie

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Lars Muckli @larsmuckli.bsky.social · Apr 5

We are recruiting for 5 permanent staff positions (Prof, Senior-, Lecturer) including for 7T-MRI. Please have a look and share widely.
(Closing date: May 12)

www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Professor, Senior Lecturer/Lecturer and Lecturer posts - Glasgow City (GB) job with University of Glasgow | 12838283

University of Glasgow College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences School of Psychology & Neuroscience Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience/Psy...

www.nature.com

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Apr 9

Fabulous chance to study brain health in athletes!

lorinanaci.bsky.social @lorinanaci.bsky.social · Apr 8

📢 Join my group as a #PhD or #RA in advanced #neuroimaging #biomarkers of #risk and #resilience factors for #dementia. DM me if interested. Looking for PhD and RA applicants. Please RT 👇
www.theresolvestudy.org
www.lorinanaci.org universityvacancies.com/trinity-coll...

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

King's Perinatal Functional Imaging Group, Tomoki Arichi @kingspfig.bsky.social · Mar 28

Very pleased to share the fMRI pipeline paper from the fetal release or the developing human connectome project, a true labour of love and incredible work from Slava Karolis #dhcp #connectome #fmri direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

The developing Human Connectome Project fetal functional MRI release: Methods and data structures

Abstract. Recent advances in fetal fMRI present a new opportunity for neuroscience to study functional human brain connectivity at the time of its emergence. Progress in the field, however, has been h...

direct.mit.edu

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Mar 26

Join us as an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology. my.corehr.com/pls/trrecrui...

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my.corehr.com

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Emily Kubota @emilykubota.bsky.social · Mar 17

The latest paper from my PhD is now out in Nature Human Behavior! rdcu.be/edRwQ

White matter connections of human ventral temporal cortex are organized by cytoarchitecture, eccentricity and category-selectivity from birth

Nature Human Behaviour - Kubota et al. find that white matter connections of ventral temporal cortex are innately organized by cytoarchitecture, category and eccentricity from birth, and also...

rdcu.be

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Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · Mar 21

Emily, I haven't read your paper yet and it looks interesting! But I'm curious why you didn't cite @cabrallaura.bsky.social's work (with me) examining the connectivity of ventral visual category regions in neonates pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36521345/

Anatomical correlates of category-selective visual regions have distinctive signatures of connectivity in neonates - PubMed

The ventral visual stream is shaped during development by innate proto-organization within the visual system, such as the strong input from the fovea to the fusiform face area. In adults, category-sel...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

Tristan Yates @tristansyates.bsky.social · Mar 20

Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Hippocampal encoding of memories in human infants

Humans lack memories for specific events from the first few years of life. We investigated the mechanistic basis of this infantile amnesia by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magne...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Rhodri Cusack

TrinityNeuroscience @trinityneuro.bsky.social · Mar 18

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